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A Tale of Two (flooded) Cities: OOOOHHHHH, What a flood!
Middleton Times Tribune - August 3, 2006
by Dietrich Gruen, Middleton Outreach Ministry
Middleton resident, Darryl Davis, was nearly washed away in downtown Madison while crossing the streets on his bike during last week’s flashflood. His tale of woe reads like a hoot and a holler.
Then there’s Rick Zynda, another local flood victim and New Orleans relief worker who speaks from a much larger perspective.
Both are friends of Dietrich Gruen, who solicited their two stories, as letters to the editor, and reconstructs a certain ironic tale of two flooded cities.
Darryl: Holy water! Man, did we get dumped on or what? At work, our ceiling was leaking in two places. The wall in the office was like a waterfall. Every time it looked like it was going to stop raining, it started up again. We are pretty much at the lower third of the hill coming from the Capitol on East Washington Avenue, and the water was flowing about shin high over to the sidewalks. Two blocks down it was closed off, and at one point the water was over waste-deep for the local fire department. Our pizza drivers were out on deliveries, but were nowhere to be found. Almost two hours later they returned—without their cars! They were drowning! Main Street, East Washington Avenue, Mifflin, Johnson, and few others were pretty much closed for a few hours. Man, I have never seen so much water in my life. Well, the sun is out now, and everything is flowing now…. Rain showers, take me away…. Just floating in the rain—hahaha!
Dietrich: Darryl, floods are no laughing matter. Having seen much worse in New Orleans, I must gently chide anyone else who thinks he had it bad last Thursday. Unless trapped in New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, we got nothing to complain about. Let’s see what Rick thinks of this flooding. Do you copy?
Rick: While trying to drive out of downtown, I saw cars and trucks stranded in 3-4 ft of water, with mass confusion, as water rushed down off Capitolhill. As people stood around watching in amazement, the scene looked like a mini-New Orleans. But the New Orleans flood was HUGE: Think 20 feet of water, covering 42 square miles of residential area—that is the equivalent of Dane County from Middleton to Stoughton UNDER WATER. And that water would be driven by the hurricane force wind and never stopped rising. Instead of standing on front porches in amazement, as people were doing in Madison, New Orleans residents were climbing into their attics and onto rooftops, hanging on for dear life!Madison’s flashflood was but a "Taste of New Orleans.”
Dietrich: Water is indeed the giver of life and equal opportunity destroyer. What Madison “enjoyed” for a few minutes, New Orleans “endured” for several months. It’s still is “under water” in many ways: Once the levees gave way, the floodwater rose nine feet in 12 minutes, up to 28 feet in some places, creating lakes of standing water that did not drain out for 13 days. And won’t get really cleaned up in 1300 days!
Rick: Still, help and hope are on the way. More is needed. High Point Church, for one, has sponsored six Disaster Response Teams (DiRT) so far to and from St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi (see www.highpointchurch.org).The next team heads to New Orleans, August 13-20. Teams are going down the third week of every month to help rebuild and renew the flooded areas, for as long as it takes.Experience not required; no qualified helpers turned away.Room and board provided by Samaritan’s Purse (see www.samaritanspurse.org). We travel by vans, so your personal cost is only for meals to and from, with donations picking up the cost of gas, sometimes even the cost of renting a 15-passenger van.
Dietrich: You’re preaching to the choir, Rick. This is just an aside, but hearing of your 15-passenger van going to help the poor—that reminds me of another tale of two cities. No, not the classic tale told by Charles Dickens, but the tale of rich and poor residing side by side right here in Middleton. Yet the one “city” seems oblivious of the other: Just a few years back, for example, a community member was questioning me on the need for MOM’s Food Pantry, asking, “Where do you get your poor from? Do you have to bus them in?” Then just a month later, when driving by Bishops Bay, a MOM client remarked, “I didn’t know they were putting up so many motels on the Westside.”
Rick: Oh, I get it, only in reverse. Why are we sending our resources down to New Orleans, when the poor are all around us, right here in Middleton?
Dietrich: True enough, but MOM has a vision to eventually unify the “two cities” of Middleton. Signs of neighborliness abound in our community, but a gap persists.
As for what is going on in the Gulf Coast, the gap between two cities, the haves and have-nots, seems to be getting even wider. All homes in New Orleans not gutted out beforethe August 29 deadline (anniversary of when Katrina hit) will be bulldozed
Rick: The greatest fear for victims of Katrina is that they will be “forgotten,” as the country “moves on.” Seeing volunteers “show up” gives them hope that people still care.
Dietrich: I agree. So let’s share this email with others. Then perhaps the local flash flood of July 27 will bring to mind the bigger flood of August 29, 2005. One can only hope,… and help.
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